When she struts from the terrace into the Garden Room at the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills, Taraji P. Henson owns the space. Wearing a Marissa Webb-designed tomato red suit paired with gold and silver pumps with a black vamp, she walks with a sway that screams power.
It’s not a far cry from the character Terry whom I’d just seen the night before in the psychological thriller No Good Deed, starring Henson and Hollywood heartthrob, Idris Elba. The Oscar nominee plays an Atlanta housewife living a quiet suburban life with her husband and two kids. She finds herself in a deadly cat and mouse game on a stormy night with an escaped killer named Colin, played by Elba.
“Hello, I’m Taraji,” she introduces herself batting voluminous lashes that sweep her perfectly arched eyebrows. Rocking an asymmetrical bob with a side-swept fringe, the girl is fierce. “Nice to meet you, I’m Yvette and this is Kawai,” this writer responds.
Here, she stands poised in her power suit, making it hard to believe that this Washington, D.C., native has some hidden physical strength. Elba jokes that Henson landed some serious punches on him during the fight scenes in the film.
It makes you ponder, like her character Terry, who was a prime target but never a victim, in real life, what is Henson protecting?
“Everything that I’ve worked for … I have built an empire in one generation. My son [Marcel] does not remember the bad times. I preach to him that he should protect it as well. I’ve done what my mother wasn’t able to do or her mother. That’s pretty huge. I emphasize him protecting it as well, with social media, [telling him to] be careful what you put out there. They are going to try to get to me through you,” she explains.
The empire she’s referring to is mighty. She serves as the executive producer of this film, has earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress opposite Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and an Emmy nod for Best Actress in a Movie or Miniseries playing the title character in “Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story.”
The Howard University grad landed a 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series playing Detective Joss Carter in the crime drama, “Person of Interest;” a 2009 Diversity Award for Best Actress for her role in Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself; and was named the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film by the Black Movie Awards for her performance as Shug in Hustle & Flow. She can even belt out a few notes and made her on-screen singing debut in Hustle & Flow performing the Academy Award-winning song, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” on the Oscar telecast in 2006.
It was portraying my namesake, “Yvette,” in Baby Boy, where Henson earned her stripes for delivering a steamy sex scene opposite Tyrese Gibson, who played hot-tempered Jody.
It’s also when she overcame insecurities about her body. She shared with fans this past spring on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” that “I dealt with my nerves the night before. I took my clothes off, looked in the mirror and dealt with everything that Taraji did not like about Taraji’s body, so that when I did the scene the next day, it wouldn’t be about Taraji because Taraji wouldn’t make a sex video.”
That was more than a decade ago and Henson has shown she has guts and great acting chops.
When did she know she had it?
